December 8, 2016

So I'm going to say it now and obviously you have to bear in mind that all my predictions are inevitably wrong, but just in case for once I'm not, I'd like to take credit for my incredible psychic powers this time: peak TV is unsustainable.

You don't technically need to be psychic to work that out. Netflix's currently $3.1bn in debt in order to pay for all its original content and it's going to need an awful lot of subscribers paying $9.99 a month for a long time to break even on that. To be fair, it got $2bn in revenue in Q3, so maybe not, but that's Netflix. How about Amazon?

More so, how about Hulu, which is making shows like The Path, 12.22.63, Chanceand The Handmaid's Tale willy nilly and you can't even watch it outside the US. And now we've got Shut Eye, in which Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Touching Evil) plays a Las Vegas magician turn shabby Los Angeles conman psychic who has problems with Gypsies (including matriarch Isabella Rosselini) who don't like the fact his sister, Leah Gibson (Rogue, The Returned) is using their tricks; his wife and partner in crime KaDee Strickland (The Wedding Bells), who thinks he's losing his mojo; and disgruntled boyfriends of his easily duped clients.

Now, obviously, Jeffrey Donovan is a good actor. But is he $175,000 an episode good? Probably not, but that's what Hulu's paying him. And if that's what they're paying him, you can bet pretty much everyone else is having to pay similar cash for similar actors, let alone the likes of Hugh Laurie and Billy Bob Thornton, who's allegedly getting $350,000 an ep for Goliath.

Something's got to give and either there are going to be a lot of companies who are going to have to get out of the content business soon or there are going to be some 'market shake-ups' (ie bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions) in the next few years.

Again, you heard it here first.

Still, enjoy it while it lasts, since we might get some good TV out of it, at least. Is Shut Eye some of that good TV?

Almost. Certainly, Shut Eye is a good name for the first half of the show's first episode, since it's amazingly soporific. I was this close to switching it off and not bothering with a proper review of it.

But the show really gets its name from the concept of the mystic third eye, which when opened reveals all manner of wisdom and knowledge. Here, Donovan's third eye is shut until that jealous boyfriend gives him a kicking to the head halfway through the episode. Then, hypnotist Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage) tries to hypnotise him into wanting to partner with her and before he knows it, Donovan's inner eye is opened and he starts seeing the world beyond, including psychedelic peppers. And not just the future - soon, he starts to re-think his life and asking himself whether lying to everyone is a good idea.

That's more or less when the show starts to become watchable. How watchable, I'll let you know once I've got a few more episodes under my belt - Hulu's put them out all at once for a change - since although Donovan's very watchable and obviously knows from his Touching Evil days how to play brain-damaged sympathetically and accurately, the other characters are all unlovable scumbags who like to dupe others. The Gypsy side of things is pretty offensive, Donovan's the sole source of humour, and the crime's are all petty and the victims are all sad dupes.

That means that you're in it only for Donovan and how well he can put off increasing serenity and not being dark and glowery for a change. Who knows - perhaps he might really be worth that $175,000 an episode after all.

December 6, 2016

Perusing comics has been a vaguely odd experience in the past fortnight, since they've been full of ghosts. Not literal ones, but ghosts of nu52 past.

The Savage Dawn storyline that saw the death of the nu52 Superman was collected together as a graphic novel, and as I revealed back in July, as planned, it contained two previously unpublished issues of Superman-Wonder Woman. I haven't bought it because although I'm dedicated to WWW, I'm not so dedicated I'm forking out £13.99 to buy a whole bunch of comics I (largely) already own. But the 'Hell Yeah Superman-n-Wonder Woman' Tumblr has published the missing issues, if you want to nip over there to read them.

Interestingly, the two issues are written by Brian Buccellato, rather than normal writer Peter Tomasi, and despite Buccellato largely being occupied with slugfest Injustice: Gods Among Us for the past five years, it's actually a far better and more sympathetic bit of storytelling than Tomasi ever managed, using the five stages of grief to explore Diana's feelings about her and Clark's break-up, and to paper over some of the cracks and illogicality in Tomasi's work.

It also gives her quite a few kick-arse moments, as well as leading into Greg Rucka's future reunion of Diana with Steve Trevor:

…Oliver Platt and Connie Britton joined the cast of Professor Marston & The Wonder Woman and we got a set photo of Gal Gadot and Saïd Taghmaoui from the slightly larger budgeted Wonder Woman.

And a whole new cartoon series, Justice League Action, debuted on the Cartoon Network. Three short, 10-minute episodes have aired so far, Diana featuring in the first and the third, and voiced by Rachel Kimsey (The Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives and a whole bunch of video games).

The ongoing story is that the Trinity™ are assembling a new Justice League and so are auditioning new members, including the likes of Firestorm; however, the first episode is more concerned with a fight between Wonder Woman, Superman and Parasite. Tonally, it's similar to Batman: The Brave and the Bold, although Diana didn't really get to do anything that funny except kick Parasite around a lot.

Just in case you were worried, some actual new comics for grown-ups were published, too. Most importantly, we saw the launch of a new comic, Batman 66 Meets Wonder Woman 77, which finally allowed the Adam West Batman and the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman to meet - although probably not in the way you were expecting.

And I did say the ghosts of the nu52 earlier. 'The Lies' story arc concludes in Wonder Woman (Rebirth) #11, giving us a few returning nu52 characters who might as well be ghosts. Meanwhile, after a delay of just four months, we've finally seen the final issue of Justice League of America published - the last nu52 comic to exit the doors of DC, just in time for the end of 2016. All of that after the jump.

December 5, 2016

It's "What have you been watching?", my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven't already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I've missed them. There's also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I've reviewed ever.

Who launches new shows at the start of December? Not many networks, which is why I haven't reviewed too much in the past week, although you may have caught my third-episode verdict on Shooter (US: USA; UK: Netflix) if you were hanging on my every word.

But with Thanksgiving over, all the regular TV shows have come back - at least until their Christmas breaks in a week or so. That means that after the jump, I'll be taking a look at the following regulars:

For one week and one week only, thanks to the fact there was the four-way superhero crossover on The CW, Arrow also makes a return. Will I stick with it afterwards? Maybe - after all, not only will I be dropping at least one show this week, I'm also going to be promoting a show, too…

Surprisingly, though, a couple of networks decided that actually, the start of December is a perfect time to launch a new TV show:

Incorporated (US: Syfy)Hailing from no less a pair of minds (or at least their production company) than Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Incorporated is one of those 'futuristic thriller' things set in the near future where the whole world's gone to pot: corporations now run everything and either you work for them in the 'green zone' living it up and holidaying on the beaches of Reykjavík now that global warming's properly kicked in or you live out in the 'red zones' in favelas, fighting for your life while trying to make a quick buck selling one of the last three or so cigarettes made from real tobacco that exist in the world.

Against this backdrop, you have former red-zoner Sean Teale (Skins) sneaking his way around a top company at the behest of Ian Tracey (Continuum, Intelligence, Travelers) in order to find out where the sister of pal Eddie Ramos is. Can he work his way to the top of the corporate ladder, by any means necessary, including framing his rivals so they get a visit from scary Dennis Haysbert (24, The Unit)?

Incorporated is ostensibly a futuristic industrial espionage thriller, but is really 49% Gattaca, 49% Elysium and 2% Soylent Green. While clearly a lot of thought has gone into imagining this future Earth of self-driving cars and face transplants - although even today we have better IT - little thought has gone into working out why we should care about Teale and his problems or any really complex bits of industrial tradecraft. Oh look, here comes a scene where Teale has to steal some data from a computer while he's in someone else's office. Can he copy it all in just a few minutes? Now - maybe not. In 2074? Of course he bloody can with his 100Tbps USB 23.0 interface and still have time left over to play holographic Tetris with his cranial implant.

The only interesting and new thing about the show that I noted was the use of capoeira as the favella martial art of choice, which was a nice touch. Otherwise, slow-moving and oddly devoid of human interest.

פאודה (Fauda) (Israel: Yes; UK: Netflix)Somewhat different from Netflix's other Israeli spy show - the comedy Mossad 101 - this is a political thriller from Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, based on their experiences of doing military service in the IDF's Duvdevan special unit. It sees former Mista'arvim (undercover counter-terrorist) commander Lior Raz (The Gordin Cell) being lured from his vineyard to supervise an operation - the capture of a Hamas leader known as 'the Panther' (Hisham Sulliman), whom Raz supposedly killed two years earlier. Except the Panther isn't dead and everything doesn't quite go as planned…

As with most Netflix 'originals', this is actually a simple acquisition, this time from Israel's Yes network, where the show aired last year, winning no fewer than six of Israel's equivalents of BAFTAs, the Ophirs, including Best Drama. I've only watched the first episode so far, and that's a relatively plot-heavy piece that leaves little time for any real character development. But it's action-packed, sympathetic not only to Arabs but also Hamas (surprisingly enough), and is pretty even-handed, with our heroes even taking unarmed civilians hostage at one point.

There's nothing I've seen, beyond its novel setting and authenticity, to make it stand out from any other good guy/terrorist Moby Dick piece, but it's certainly promising enough to make me want to watch more.

The Crown (Netflix)I've been promising for weeks to cover this, but we've been stalled at episode 8 for a month now, so time to at least discuss what I've seen so far. The first of seven or so seasons, each focusing on a different decade of her life, The Crown is a moderately fictional biopic of none other than Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy from Crossbones, White Heat, Going Postal).

Season 1 starts off giving us a woman who had no plans to do much except be a wife, mother and horse breeder, until the death of her father King George VI (the miscast Jared Harris from The Other Boleyn Girl, Mad Men, Fringe, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadowsand To The Ends of the Earth, when Netflix should have stumped up the cash to get Colin Firth to redo his The King's Speech turn) catapults her and hubby Philip (Matt Smith - Doctor Who, Terminator: Genisys) into one of the most constitutionally important roles in the UK. In an age of increasing modernity, with the monarchy increasingly looking like an anachronistic relic, Foy then has to find a role for herself as well as for the Crown, while juggling the competing demands of her husband, duty, previous kings and queens, her randy sister Margaret and Prime Minister Winston Churchill (John Lithgow).

While there are attempts to give the show some Game of Thrones-like qualities, thanks to the machinations of Churchill, abdicated uncle Edward VIII and quasi-father-in-law Lord Mountbatten (Greg Wise), The Crown really sits as a halfway house between writer Peter Morgan's The Queen and The Audience. Oddly episodic for Netflix thanks to the nature of real-life, the show is something of an unplanned origin story, going from historic incident to historic incident in the 1950s, showing us how Elizabeth might have evolved from someone whose most important thought was whether to take her husband's adopted surname to being someone with the power to depose the government if she so chooses - albeit running the risk of losing all power if she ever exercises it.

Unlike The Audience, which was firmly on Elizabeth's side, making her an ambitious woman with plenty of ideas for government that she has to put to one side, The Crown is less concerned with this Elizabeth and her supervising of Margaret's scandalous love life, and is more on the side of Philip, something helped perhaps by Smith's magnificent performance/impersonation. Here, Philip's more notorious qualities are toned down to make him a sympathetic, dedicated naval officer (albeit one who would rather have been in the air force), loving husband and father, and firm embracer of modernity, forced to abandon his ambitions and kneel to his wife by the necessities of the throne and the Crown.

There are parts of The Crown that feel made up, particularly anything to do with Edward VIII or Churchill, and although a little research reveals that they are actually absolutely true, it doesn't help with the show's verisimilitude. Foy, who's shown herself to be sparky in other shows and is almost perfect casting as the young Elizabeth, is nevertheless done no favours by Morgan. He tosses her a few bones, such as being able to repair a truck thanks to her wartime service as a mechanic, or her requests for a proper education to supplement the constitution-focused training she got as a child, which she's able to use to outmanoeuvre polticians. But that's largely drowned out by thankless duty after thankless duty after tragic loss being dropped on her shoulders - such is the burden of 'the Crown'.

But it's beautifully made, highly enjoyable, far more palatable than Downton Abbey, frequently funny, frequently tear-jerking, often romantic and just like Elizabeth, finds a reason for the monarchy in this day and age.

We will watch the rest of it. Just as soon as lovely wife's finished Master Chef - The Professionals, The Grand Tour, My Kitchen Rules Australia, and Strictly Come Dancing. Oh yes, and The Walking Dead.

December 2, 2016

In an exciting new feature I thought of last week, every Friday, I'll be letting you know the latest announcements concerning when new imported TV shows will finally be arriving on your screens - assuming there have been any, of course.

December 1, 2016

We've seen in our Weird Old Title Sequences section quite a few genre shows of the 60s and 70s, such as Out of the Unknownand The Tomorrow People, that had properly weird title sequences designed to do your nut in.

It was, after all, a psychedelic time, during which Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop were doing all manner of fun things with music and sound effects, so it shouldn't be too surprising that television was trying to do the same visually.

But this wasn't the occasional effort by a programme - such was the age, even smaller shows got in on the act.

As the name suggests, 1968's Late Night Horror was an anthology horror show, one that would have fit quite nicely into TMINE's The Wednesday Play section were it not for the fact five of the six pisodes were lost/wiped by the BBC, with only The Corpse Can't Play surviving. In part a test of the new colour capabilities of television, it was also a beneficiary of the boom in TV horror in the late 60s that also gave us Mystery and Imagination (1966-70), A Ghost Story For Christmas, The Stone Tape, The Dead of Night and more.

What else survives of it, except for that one episode? Well, its weird old title sequence, naturally - music by the Radiophonic Workshop, of course…

About the blog
A UK media blog focusing on the best scripted TV from around the world, with daily news, views, exclusive reviews and good conversation. There's a bit of a bias towards the latest and greatest US TV, but we also cover Scandinavian, Canadian, European and Antipodean TV, as well as UK TV ranging from new Doctor Who to old Z Cars, and BBC4 to S4C.

Add in film, theatre, art, books, events, competitions and even weekly reviews of Wonder Woman comics, and you've (hopefully) got officially the fourth best blog on the web for media lovers. Oh yes, and there's The Barrometer, the ultimate guide to quality TV.

"For most of us watching the telly of an evening is a way to wind down and relax, but for Rob Buckley it’s his blogging bread and butter. With reviews of cult classics and up and coming US and Brit television shows, The Medium is Not Enough is fast becoming essential reading for TV buffs, with over 50,000 hits a month."

"The Medium Is Not Enough is a light-hearted look at TV, often from the US, but also from the UK. With varied, well-written content, the blog features healthy engagement and features well in search engines."

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About me
I'm Rob Buckley, a freelance journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of, although you might have heard me on Radio 5 Live's Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I've edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for trade magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider and the equally short-lived Death Ray and Filmstar magazines; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it "web site for urban hedonists" The Tribe. I'm freelance now and have contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network and TV Scoop.